John Mason wrote: At the bottom of the turn both the upper and lower ski are carving. They are not sliding sideways as in a side slip drill. They are sliding along their lengths. In this case, when you remove weight from the downhill ski and tip it, the upper ski, if you don't have pressure on it at that point, will flop flat and slide sideways. You don't want sliding sideways down the hill to occur. You want to hold that edge as a fulcrum so the tipping of the downhill ski works better. Only when the CM has gone over the skis will that new stance ski change edges to it's BTE.
Passive in that the BTE on the new stance ski engages passively. Positive in that the new stance ski is established early on it's LTE before the fall line has been crossed. (and it was already on it's LTE at that point anyway)
I am glad to hear that my sophistry would be correct. Although stating that the new stance ski establishes and edge early on LTE is "positive" is just an arbitrary label. My sophistry would suggest why the passivity can be considered positive, and very athletic.
The key points are that the uphill LTE is the fulcrum. While the skier waits patiently for the uphill ski to roll to BTE, the CM crosses over the fulcrum -- His CM is the end of the upside down pendulum anchored at the LTE of the uphill ski. How quickly does the CM move across? That is determined by three things: the original velocity of the CM in the downhill direction, the amount of bite of the brake creating the fulcrum, and the speed at which the stance leg collapses/is tipped.
IMO, an "expert skier" can perform these moves very very quickly. But what key feature remains once you distill these moves to their bare essence? What remains is the CM crossing over the skis.
It is certainly true that one measure of athleticism is the degree to which an athlete lets their CM become "off balance" as well as their ability to recover from being "off balance". Consequently, a strong fast movement of the CM across the skis will require a quick recovery, and will be quite athletic, regardless of the uphill ski attitude being "passive".
And IMO, the PMTS progression focusses specifically on the movement of the CM across the skis and down that fall line. IMO, that is it's greatest strength.
What seems to be at issue at Epic, is whether the movement patterns are in some sense optimal, and in another sense within everyone's grasp.
IMO, what matters is whether or not the skiing public will enjoy skiing like that. Others suggest that WC racers ski like that, so it's best. Sure they do, but they do a whole lot more than just that too....
So, in the end, my opinion of PMTS is that it's a fine way to learn to ski. I also think It's also not for everyone. Why? Not everyone will allow their CM to go sufficiently off balance for their skis to do the work. Nor will many folks let themselves go "fast enough". Those psychological factors have not been addressed. (And some folks have balance issues, that don't let them traverse on one leg.) The presence of the wedge turn in the ATS clearly addresses these types of skiers. That's not even considered bus-loads of unmotivated beginner kids squeezing into limited terrain.
So, I obviously disagree that teaching the wedge cannot work.